Bolt lobbying revelations: Estonia official says human error behind missing correspondence

The omission of emails from the Estonian Ministry of Economic Affairs to Bolt and other mobility tech firms, demanded in a freedom of information (FOI) request, was due to human error, the Ministry’s Deputy Secretary General Sandra Särav told Estonian news agency ERR.

On Tuesday (23 April), Euractiv exclusively reported a series of email exchanges and confidential documents, secured by non-profit Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) through a FOI request, which showed how intensely Estonia’s flagship mobility app and others were lobbying to limit the scope of the EU’s first directive on the gig economy.

The emails included a letter written against the legislation by Bolt, which they hoped the Estonian government would sign as its own and get other countries to do so as well. The letter was initially addressed to Särav, who had previously worked for Bolt for two years.

The Estonian Minister for Economic Affairs Tiit Riisalo denied any wrongdoing in an interview with ERR on Thursday (25 April) and confirmed Särav will stay in her post.

Consumers’ and workers’ rights must be protected but “businesses must be able to develop their own businesses. And I can’t imagine any other way for such communication [between the Ministry of Economic Affairs and business] not to take place,” Riisalo said.

Estonia, a leader in the EU in IT and digital economy, was part of a group of countries, including Germany, France, and Greece, that tried to block the legislation from going through in the Council of the EU until the very last moment — arguing that it risked stifling business innovation.

Missing emails

The Ministry for Economic Affairs had failed to respond to CEO’s FOI request in full, as Euractiv reported. Neither Särav’s responses and subsequent exchanges with Bolt, nor the full list of meetings between Bolt and government officials, were made accessible.

Särav denied having intentionally hidden any correspondence between herself and Bolt to  the Estonian news agency. She said she had never replied to Bolt’s letter idea, and passed the correspondence onto relevant colleagues.

She did acknowledge however that the letter should have been made public. “We certainly did not do it out of a desire to hide the letter,” she told ERR, citing “human error”.

“I also wrote in a letter that I did not want to deal with Bolt issues,” she said.

Euractiv, which received ministry comments ahead of the investigation’s publication, was never informed about such a letter.

Political debate

Euractiv’s revelations also appear to have triggered a debate among Estonian political figures on how far private interests’ lobbying ought to be tolerated.

Reform party (Renew Europe) lawmaker and former foreign minister Jürgen Ligi criticised Minister Riisalo for being overly supportive of private interests.

“For the second time in a year, a high-ranking civil servant is reprimanded for private interests, and for the second time [Riisalo] replies with the pride and diligence learned by the commoners that it is his job to stand up for private interests,” he said.

Social democrat Tanel Kiik said Estonia’s image in the European Union was damaged by its blocking of the platform work directive. “Today’s news only confirms that my concern was justified,” he said referring to Euractiv’s investigation.

In an interview with ERR on Friday, Amnesty International Estonia’s Executive Director Miriam Tõnismägi said Bolt’s drafting of a letter in the name of Estonia might just be lobbying gone too far.

“In this case, because the phrasing of the letter did not present it as Bolt’s position – which would be entirely acceptable – but rather aimed to represent the position of the Estonian government […] We could say it crosses a line”.

Margus Tsahkna, the chairman of Eesti 200 (Renew Europe), Riisalo’s party, which is a junior government coalition partner, dismissed the critics altogether.

“I wonder whose taxes Jürgen Ligi and Tanel Kiik are living off of? It is normal for entrepreneurs to stand up for their interests. The Estonian state must also stand up for the interests of its entrepreneurs, just like all other countries do,” he said.

[Edited by Eliza Griktsi/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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